# Addressing Unmet Social Needs among Hospitalized Children

> **NIH AHRQ K08** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2022 · $148,775

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Even before COVID-19, nearly 1.6 million US children experienced homelessness1 and 14% lived in food
insecure households.2 Strong associations between children’s health and these unmet social needs3-9 has led
many organizations to endorse screening patients for social risks in clinical settings and connecting them to
community resources.10-16 Pediatric clinic-to-community linking interventions have shown beneficial health
effects in non-hospital settings.17,18 However, there is little evidence about how unmet social needs affect
hospitalized children and how to effectively address these needs during inpatient clinical care.
Dr. Pantell’s long-term goal is to become an independent investigator leading the development, testing, and
implementation of interventions to address unmet social needs in clinical settings to improve patient and
population health. His overall objective is to identify which unmet social needs are most strongly associated
with unplanned health care utilization among hospitalized children, and then conduct a pilot trial to determine
the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a caregiver- and care team member-informed protocol for
screening for and addressing these needs in the pediatric inpatient setting. The central hypothesis of his work
is that providing resources to address social needs during children’s hospitalizations will increase linkages to
social resources, improve health, and reduce unplanned health care utilization. The rationale is that
understanding how to successfully implement social care protocols will be crucial to scaling the integration of
evidence-based social interventions into clinical settings.
To pursue his objective, Dr. Pantell will pursue these specific aims: 1) Use electronic health records (EHRs) to
examine associations between unmet social needs and unplanned health care utilization among hospitalized
pediatric patients; 2) Use qualitative methods to explore caregiver and care team member perspectives on
social needs screening to inform the development of effective inpatient social needs screening strategies and
interventions; 3) Conduct a pilot trial to determine the feasibility and acceptability of implementing an inpatient
social needs screening and intervention protocol in a tertiary pediatric hospital setting.
The proposed work is innovative in its use of a novel method (natural language processing – a text-mining tool)
to address an understudied population (hospitalized children) and advance an underdeveloped area for
intervention (addressing social needs). It is significant as it will help advance understanding of 1) which unmet
social needs are most strongly related to health outcomes among children; and 2) how to effectively implement
protocols in the inpatient setting to address these social needs in order to improve health among children and
low-income families, AHRQ priority populations.
To successfully pursue his proposed specific aims, Dr. Pantell wil...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10449835
- **Project number:** 1K08HS028473-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Matthew Shannon Pantell
- **Activity code:** K08 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $148,775
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-30 → 2024-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10449835

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10449835, Addressing Unmet Social Needs among Hospitalized Children (1K08HS028473-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10449835. Licensed CC0.

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